Love Addict

A Love Addict becomes compulsively attached and obsessed to one significant relationship/person as an attempt to fill an internal void- sabotaging relationships. Like an alcoholic or any other addict, love addicts substitute a sick relationship with something outside of themselves for security. Love addicts tend fall in ‘love’ overnight, jump into relationships too quickly, while never getting to know who their partner is. Their relational patterns are compulsive, out of control, and continue in spite of adverse effects on their relationships and their lives. They’re addicted to romance and hooked on the fantasy of "falling in love." They use relationships to achieve their romantic "fix," but their primary desire is "enchantment” or infatuated love that never ends.

Love addicts usually fall for individuals in relationships with people who are unreliable, emotionally unavailable, and often addicts. The avoidant partner’s counter-dependency and fear of intimacy causes them to distance themselves from relational commitment and create an emotional trigger that sets off the addictive compulsive and obsessive cycle for the love addict. The Love Addiction Relationship Cycle they fall into create dynamics of the distance-pursuer pattern that frequently plays out from the beginning to its progressive stages of these addictive relationships … creating a toxic and painful dance of love.

In the late 20th century there was a popular assumption that women are primarily love addicts, while men are primarily the avoidant type the woman love addict is drawn to in relationships. Today we know this is a fallacy. In the 21st century we are more aware that addiction doesn’t discriminate based on gender- no matter what the addiction. The fact is today it is more accepted that a love addict is just as likely to be a male who attracts an avoidant female. Because of men's role in society, their love addiction may often show up somewhat differently- men in love addiction are much less likely to reach out for help in their suffering.

Love Addict Types

(love addiction)

There are nine different love addict types- each characteristically unique from the other. The nine Love Addict Types include:

1. Typical Love Addict

2. Romantic Love Addict

3. Anorexic Love Addict

4. Non-Romantic Love Addict

5. Avoidant Love Addict

6. Abusive Love Addict

7. Battered Love Addict

8. Sex and Love Addict

9. Parent Love Addict

Core Characteristics

Virtually all love addicts share five core emotial/behavioral characteristics which include:

1. Fear of abandonment… one of their greatest fears and emotional triggers in relationships.

2. Denial… the love addict enters relationships in denial- denial of their partner’s reality, and the relationship and the self.

3. Impaired Self Worth-Toxic Shame… through internal feelings of shame-- love addicts have difficulty caring for and affirming their value and self-worth leading to a distorted reality and distorted core beliefs. Underlying self eorth/shame characteristics include:

* Perfectionism * Fear of intimacy * Placating/care taking/rescuing

4. Unrealistic relational expectations… love addicts tend to have unrealistic beliefs and expectations that contribute to sabotaging relationships and resulting in emotional swings and controlling and manipulating behaviors with their partner.

5. Boundary impairment… love addicts display blurred boundaries—(too open; smothering; enmeshment- pushing others away) in relationships- and have difficulty identifying their right to protect the self with healthy personal boundaries.

* Each core characteristic is interrelated with the other.

References

• Hall, Jim. The LOVE ADDICT in Love Addiction: Everything Love Addicts need to know about themselves and their relationships. See articels at http://loveaddictionhelp.com/
• Timmreck, Thomas C. "Overcoming the loss of a love: preventing love addiction and promoting positive emotional health." Psychological Reports 66 (1990).